Breads and dips

Again the photo is not our meal, I must get in the habit of taking shots of my food :( so, photo by jbcurio

One of the most pleasant Vegan lunches is breads and dips, most often when it’s just the two of us it is bread and dips, but several breads or toasts do help make it more special. The recipes are simple, keep well in the frig, and cheap too :)

For lunch today we had hummus, skordalia, some olive oil with a little fruity balsamic at the bottom, and Miriam’s competition recipe Guacomole.

Miriam’s Vegan Guacamole

  • 1 perfectly ripe avocado (you can tell it’s perfect when then little knobbly bit where it used to be attached to the tree comes off easily when you nudge it gently-ish with your thumb).
  • 1/4 onion/red onion or one shallot or a couple of spring onions cut into tiny little pieces.
  • 1 small-medium sized tomato cut into equally tiny little pieces.
  • lemon or lime juice
  • plenty of salt and pepper
  • 1-2 teaspoons of ground cumin
  • 3 or 4 good shakes of your favourite hot sauce (I favour Kaitaia fire)

Mash up the avocado with a fork, mix everything else in, add more lemon juice etc to taste.

I omitted the hot sauce, though I got quite used in Africa to adding chili paste to my meals I don’t like to add a little chili to everything as so many Kiwis do, I also reduced the salt, making a healthy dip even more healthy.

Romanesco and blue cheese

Romanesco fractals (photo By Nick Saltmarsh)

Typical of the use-less-resources recipes I’m expecting to post is the deliciously simple Romanesco and Blue Cheese. It’s a sophisticated yet frugal take on Cauliflower Cheese. Like Cauliflower Cheese it can be either a mildly sauced side dish for unrepentant carnivores, or the main attraction with other veges and carbohydrates as the meal.

 

Its simple get one of those fascinating fractal vegetables they call Romanesco (or Romanesco Broccoli or Broccoflower) cut it into florets and steam it. When cooked (I like it still slightly crunchy) add crumbled blue cheese (any cheap but sharp variety) and a dash of cream. Stir and salt to taste.

Simple as, but sophisticated and tasty. What I’m calling (with apologies to Ray McVinnie) “cheap smart and easy”.

The long wait ;)

OK, so most of you have not been waiting with bated breath, but still I owe explanations. First came the new property, a “lifestyle block”, which meant a new life(style). Then came Christmas and summer, and feeding twentysomethings in droves, then a frantically busy time that still has not really calmed to “normal”. During this time I have seldom lived up to my Repentant Carnivore dreams. Eggs come from the family chooks, they need to be used, meat is quick and easy and kept in the freezer…

Frankly, as we look forward to slaughtering and butchering a huge steer and filling the freezers with meat, I am not sure how two vegan meals a day will work!? But yet, the penitance is still present in the carnivore ;)

So, I’m going to try to restart this blog. I’ll again post vegan recipes as I try them and like them, but more often I suspect – under the new regime, and until I actually live the life(style) instead of living a hectic weekly commute – I will post ideas, recipes and tips that allow the use of less resources even while featuring meat, cheese and eggs.(See next post for an example.)